


Sagarmatha's Last Stand

by TheUtilitaria



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Apocalypse, Battle, Gen, Inspired by The Expanse, Military Science Fiction, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Missing Scene, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Post-Eros Incident (The Expanse), Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Battles, Strategy & Tactics, The Expanse Fandom Exchange, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29468607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUtilitaria/pseuds/TheUtilitaria
Summary: I started thinking about what was going through the minds of the UNN and MCRN crews aboard the ships who led the doomed defence of the ring space at the end of S5E10, and wrote this, A one-shot reinterpretation of that scene. Enjoy!
Kudos: 7





	Sagarmatha's Last Stand

Admiral Mehmet Harman had always considered himself a student of history. He’d never expected to be living in it.

In the days since the apocalyptic strike on Earth, the scenes of whole cities ripped apart like paper, of tsunamis that filled half the sky, choking ash clouds and fields strewn with body bags, he’d felt as if he’d been living in a waking dream.

‘How had it come to this?’ he’d wondered aloud in the officer’s mess of the MCRN _Sagarmatha_. The other officers had stared at him as if he’d asked a stupid question, and then they’d all gone back to silently eating.

Marco Inaros was the reason, and no-one wanted to look any further. But Mehmet couldn’t stop himself from asking _why_.

At least he wasn’t on the _Tripoli_ or _Montenegro_ , the two Truman-class battleships escorting them. Mehmet happened to know that the _Montenegro’s_ captain had grown up in Senegal. He’d tried to imagine what the UNN officer must have felt watching Dakar and the rest of the west African shared interest zone be reduced to dust, knowing that millennia of history and his entire family was gone forever.

‘Did we do wrong?’

It was a question that had come to Mehmet’s mind in the few hours of bunk time he managed to snatch between endless drills and tactical simulations. Their escort fleet had been withdrawn to protect the inner planets, leaving the _Donnager_ -class and the two _Truman_ -class escorts alone to guard the Ringspace.

‘Where did we go wrong?’

Mehmet knew his history. He understood that the system Earth and Mars built was not perfect. Humanity’s first forays into space had been driven by hope and desperation in equal measure - the climate shifts of the early twenty-first century, the economic stagnation that had gripped the UN, the yet more devastating crisis of fusion waste heat which crippled Earth’s already battered ecosystem - all had left the human race in a precarious position.

Then had come Solomon Epstein and his drive, and with it Martian independence.

No, it hadn’t been perfect. But the horrors of the past had faded - the crippling hunger and poverty that billions of Earthers lived under for centuries had all but disappeared, war between nations became a distant memory and Mars prospered.

For most people, by the numbers, the System had become a safe and just place to live. It could have been so much worse.

Mehmet had always believed in the dream of Mars, even as he understood that there would be losers and winners from its progress. In his heart he’d been glad that the OPA had achieved its independence. Their time had come, and the sooner humanity could put old hatreds aside, the better.

He’d found himself replaying Marco Inaros’s broadcast, trying to imagine what had driven the man but in the end, he knew what his answer was. Inaros had to die, and anyone who stood with him deserved death as well.

Mehmet had joined in the jubilation that spread among the UNN ships after news of the attack on Pallas station. He’d watched the videos of the Belters aboard that rock celebrating Marco’s crimes, celebrating the worst act of mass murder in history. Those on Pallas had made their choice. A deeper part of him felt discomfort at that thought, doubt that the attack on Pallas was just, but he’d quashed it. This was war. The Earthers hadn’t even tried to hide their glee.

Mehmet had always believed in the dream of Mars, but every day that felt increasingly hollow. What did Mars stand for if there were a thousand new worlds and more to settle?

He knew the corruption ran deeper than anyone in the Navy would admit and did his best to ignore the fact that he knew, to pretend that Mars still meant something, that they were unified and that the world they’d built was worth fighting for. It was - he had to believe it was.

* * *

The battle for the ring began without warning.

Mehmet was seated on the bridge of the _Sagarmatha,_ watching the vector lines of the approaching Free Navy fleet, the further-out cluster of MCRN reinforcements, when the collision radar screamed out a violent alert. There was no time to react before the impact came.

Shudders ran the length of the massive Donnager-class battleship, and internal camera views showed streaks of hyperaccelerated dust penetrating their armoured skin, piercing corridors and equipment and the bodies of the crew. In the CIC, Mehmet and his officers were mercifully saved, their air seal remaining intact and insulating them from the damage to the rest of the ship. Gravity vanished in a moment, and Mehmet felt the sensation of freefall rise in his chest, a sensation uncomfortably like anxiety.

“Drive offline, torpedo tubes are jammed,” the first officer reported. Mehmet shook his head, trying to clear his vision, and glanced at the terminal display.

“Stealth coated,” he concluded. “We didn’t see the rocks till the last second."

The first officer nodded.

The comm system rebooted, showing the _Tripoli_ and _Montenegro_ \- sturdily built UNN vessels, still intact, drives also crippled. The Free Navy had launched a massive wave of torpedoes.

“Launch torpedoes, PDCs to automatic,” he ordered, but the weapons officers had already taken the initiative.

Even with stolen Martian technology, even with their drive crippled, the Free Navy should not have chosen to tangle with a _Donnager_ -class battleship. The _Sagarmatha_ bared its teeth and struck back.

The hull rang and shuddered as torpedoes left their tubes, the heavy boom of their two foehammer railguns distinguishable from the subsonic thrum of PDCs. They were flinging everything at the Free Navy, aiming to finish the battle quickly.

The _Pella_ , Inaros’s ship, was at the centre of the attacking cluster. That was their target.

“Splash one,” the weapons officer announced, as a Free Navy ship - a light destroyer of MCRN design, blew apart under a high-yield nuclear detonation. Beside them, the UNN ships opened up with torpedoes.

Mehmet suppressed a smile. A damaged Donnager-class, engine-less, would be the one to end the life of the greatest mass murderer in human history. He could be glad of that.

Enemy torpedoes streaked inwards from all directions, and their PDCs fired, arcs shifting to compensate for damaged sections. They couldn’t manoeuvre, but they could still react with blinding speed.

Railgun one overheated, and Mehmet diverted power to their second gun, placing slug after slug in the direction of the _Pella_ , even knowing they were beyond close-quarters range. Keep them occupied, overwhelm them any way you can.

“Incoming - ringspace,” the first officer announced.

Mehmet glanced at the display, and sure enough the Belters on Medina had decided to join the fight. The weapons breached the bizarre non-space behind the ring and fanned out behind the defending fleet, accelerating at the physical limit of their drives.

“Will they accept guidance commands?” Mehmet wondered. “Perhaps we can coordinate them to attack the ships-”

Alerts shrieked as the _Sagarmatha’s_ tactical computer switched the torpedoes IFF from allied to hostile. They weren’t accelerating past them to attack the Free Navy fleet. They were aligned on the _Sagarmatha_. A pit opened in Mehmet’s stomach as he saw his end approach, but professionalism took over. Duty came first, even if the battle was lost, even if it was all hopeless.

“Defensive fire only for the guns,” he ordered. Get all our torps out before we’re gone.”

Mehmet wondered at the calm of his own voice, but the officers obeyed, hands barely shaking. They had seconds now, maybe only one or two.

PDCs swivelled about, destroying one, then two, then five of the Medina station torpedoes as they approached from behind. The blue markers drew closer, and when the end came, Mehmet’s last thought was of the future that his world had been denied.

* * *

The stealthed projectiles had ripped right through the CIC of the UNN _Tripoli_ , shredding the bodies of Captain Vats’s second officer and comms officer. They’d reverted to redundant command pathways and were still fighting, but rail gun power was out, and they were down to PDCs only.

Vats watched in mounting horror as the torpedo swarm from Medina obliterated the _Sagarmatha_. He'd never trusted the skinnies, and in the end they had sided with Inaros - freely made the choice to align themselves with the greatest crime in all of history.

“Keep firing,” Vats shouted, through the chaos of the _Tripoli_ ’s bridge.

The ship groaned alarmingly, structural warnings appearing on his terminal display. Officers barked out panicked orders, but still the PDCs fired. They wouldn't go down without a fight.

He knew they wouldn’t survive, not without the Donnager-class to defend them in close quarters, but if they could whittle down the Free Navy fleet enough, maybe they would give the Martian reinforcements less to worry about.

The _Tripoli_ ’s rail guns were stilled, lacking the reserve power the Martians could bring to bear, but her torpedoes continued to fly at the approaching fleet. If anything more came from Medina they were done for.

The Martian reinforcements had launched, weapons streaming inward to add their strength to the battle. Not in time to save _Tripoli_ , of course, but perhaps enough to make a difference, maybe enough to kill Inaros.

Vats watched the torpedo swarm draw closer, vectors aligning on the _Tripoli_. They’d been betrayed twice over.

_No, this is too much._

He simply stared, dumbstruck, as the swarm arrowed towards his ship, overwhelming their PDCs with ease. He felt the _Tripoli_ shudder beneath him as a massive impact struck them and screamed as he died.


End file.
